The Unseen Servant forums

For the past few months or so as I've been playing the Bushido campaigns here, I've contemplated how Cold Iron (a college friend's home brew RPG from the 80s) could do the genre. I thought I'd put out a recruitment post and see whether there would be enough interest for me to make the effort to do rules work to support the genre and setting work.

First: Cold Iron - here's my gateway to Cold Iron stuff:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nyO ... sp=sharing

Second: Setting

I'm still thinking about what to use for a setting. Feudal Japan would be nice, but I honestly don't have a map for Japan that would work for me. I am looking for a 5-6 mile scale hex crawl map. Ideally the map has lots of interesting features on it that I can leverage for adventure sites.

Now a general problem, I'm not actually all that well read on the genre, so there is a risk this would look a bit like generic D&D fantasy with cool Japanese weapons and armor rather than European weapons and armor. I'd like to do different so I will make efforts, but it's never going to be as much a samurai setting as someone more versed in the genre would do. Of course players versed in the genre will give the setting some color beyond what I manage.

Third: Campaign Style

I'm looking for this to follow a restricted sandbox in that I don't do big court intrigue or even little intrigue very well, so a focus on exploring adventuring sites and the countryside is going to play to my strengths better. Players are free to RP among themselves and I will do my best to respond, but I don't do long in character speeches. And RP among the players shouldn't get so heavy the GMed aspect of the campaign is lost.

Fourth: Time Frame

It will take me a while to set this up if I get enough interest to even kick it off. Patience with my pace of getting it set up, and my bumbling around in the genre will be necessary for a successful campaign.

So if this sounds remotely interesting, take a look a Cold Iron and start talking here. If we get enough momentum, I'll set up a campaign sub-forum.

Frank

Sounds interesting-- count me in!

I am happy to try this as either Samurai or generic fantasy.

The homebrew system looks well-engineered and I am curious to try it out. Happy to help being your 1980's game experience back to a fresh new life.

Cold Iron generic fantasy would certainly be easier, but I still have an academic interest in seeing if the system could do samurai without too much trouble.

I'd like at least 4 players to make this a go though.

And to reiterate, Cold Iron was a college friend, Mark Christiansen's home brew system. It was never published, just passed around as photocopies, printouts, or I even have a composition book with laboriously hand copied spells.

For those curious about what a character might look like or want to play around a bit, I put together a character worksheet in Google Sheets:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Make a copy if you want to play with it.

Also, anyone who might be contemplating this, shoot me a PM and I'll invite you to my Discord where I am offering thoughts on conversion of the rules from pseudo-European medieval to pseudo-Japanese medieval...

I'm still working on this as a project of amusement. I don't know if it can generate enough interest to actually run...

We're going to go forward and start this as a solo game. Additional players are always welcome.

I've got a forum for this. I've pre-added some folks to the group.

viewforum.php?f=1222

For anyone maybe interested in Samurai/Ninja games who is scared off by a new system, I have recently finished a Google Sheets character sheet for Cold Iron that does lots of the math to make creating a character pretty simple:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I'm in, and GM ffilz is making learning the RPG system pretty painless for us.